Brainstorming Your Story? Proactively Avoid Issues

When we first start coming up with story ideas, we often want to remain as open-minded as possible. The craziest brainstorming can result in the most unique stories. *grin*

But at some point, we have to take those various thoughts for our story and assemble them into ideas that we can actually make work. Depending on where we fall on the pantser (those who write by the seat of their pants) to plotter spectrum, that assembly and planning step might be as detailed as a scene-by-scene outline or as vague as a notion of the type of story we want to tell.

It’s far better to proactively be aware of potential major story issues before we get too invested in words that will need to be cut. And that means we might want to include a step in our writing process to question what story issues we might run into before we write too many words.

The Usual Suspects with Major Story Issues

In both the plot and character aspects of our stories, we can stumble into major problems. Below are just a few of the things to watch out for…

Plot Issues to Avoid

A plot point that…

lacks a cause or trigger

fails to create a reaction or result in change

leads to reactions that don’t flow or fit the cause

lacks logic or doesn’t make sense

doesn’t fit the world we’ve created

contradicts the story on the time, place, or characters involved

distracts from the story we’re trying to tell

doesn’t match what would actually happen (unless we have an in-story explanation that doesn’t feel too convenient)

contradicts what we’ve been told previously (again, unless we have an in-story explanation that doesn’t feel too convenient)

I’ve written before about how to find and fix plot holes, and the same steps can help us here. We especially have to watch out for creating more problems with our fixes.

During the brainstorming and story-planning stages, we might be tempted to go for the “easy” or contrived explanations for why things happen they way they do. We might hand-wave away problems, figuring no one will notice, or we might try to shoehorn in an explanation that doesn’t quite fit right.

But now is the time to make those fixes for real, before we commit to a story path with our time and energy in word count. *smile*

Character Issues to Avoid

A character aspect that…

lacks a motivation (or ignores their stated motivation when convenient for the plot)

isn’t consistent with their character development

undermines other aspects of their characterization (without an in-story, not-too-convenient explanation)

contradicts what we know or have been told about the character (without an in-story explanation what or how things changed)

makes the character feel too much of a puppet to the plot

distracts from the story we want to tell

undercuts the story’s stakes or consequences of failure

doesn’t allow for conflict or story tension

requires a character to act in ways that breaks reader trust or connection (unless that’s the point of the story)

Let’s take an example to explain… In a romance, the plot might require the heroine to feel alone at the Black Moment. Obviously, there are many options for creating that situation. It’s not unusual to have a “break up scene” at this point, fulfilling the “boy loses girl” scenario.

However, if our hero does something so awful, so unforgivable, so unfixable, readers will no longer root for our couple to get together. That will break the story.

Instead, we need an option that allows readers to understand, forgive, and maintain the connection they feel to the characters. During our brainstorming and planning phase, we can ensure that our characters are being true to themselves and the story, before we ever write a word. *smile*

Another Source of Story Problems: Biases

There’s another source of story problems that we often can’t fix on our own: story, worldbuilding, plot, and character aspects built on our biases.

We all have biases—that’s not the issue. The problem comes when our biases are unquestioned and can lead to harm for others.

For example, if we’re biased against people of a marginalized population, such as those of certain races, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, body weights, economic situations, etc., we might cause harm if we write about characters of that population. We’re likely to mislead unaware readers into thinking our perspective is factually and uncontroversially accurate, and/or we’ll make readers of that population feel less than or attacked.

But That Might Not Be Enough…

But none of that is a cure-all, as our biases can make us blind to the stereotypes and poor sources we might rely on. We usually don’t know nearly as much as we think we do, and if we rely on just our instincts, we’re bound to make harmful mistakes.

They might not feel comfortable telling us about the problems they find, especially if the issue resides all the way down to our premise, as they might worry about a “shoot the messenger” reaction.

Depending on the depth of the issue, we might need to rewrite significant portions of the story, or potentially even scrap the whole thing (such as if the premise itself is problematic, like a Nazi romance).

Preventing Issues: Part Two

All that is why I loved an idea Heidi Heilig proposed on Twitter the other week:

Instead of sensitivity readers I wonder if we should start talking about and normalizing “Sensitivity Consultations”? Where authors/writers hire a person for an hour or two to discuss potential pitfalls at the outline/idea stage. It might save a ton of grief.

I guess what I’m saying is, I just reserved time with a friend for a sensitivity consultation while I’m still at the first draft stage and not locked into any terrible decisions that would make both parties horrified down the line.

This sort of relationship might also take some of the strain and pressure off both parties. Stakes are lower. Timelines are more flexible. It allows for the sharing of education and resources, and for brainstorming alternative solutions or directions.

One of the biggest fears i see from writers about hiring readers is that they’ll say that a 2 year project has to be scrapped, ground up. One of the biggest fears I see from readers is that a writer will flat out refuse their advice and all their slogging through was in vain.

In other words, just as we might check for plot or character holes before starting our drafting process, we might spend an hour or so in a consultation to check for issues in how we plan to incorporate or portray a marginalized character before starting to write. Checks at this stage would cost less, prevent harm to our readers (including our sensitivity reader), and most beneficially to us, avoid major rewrites or even losing a whole project that’s unfixable.

So the next time we’re working on fleshing out a story idea, we might want to add a step to our brainstorming/planning process. A Premise Check can focus on plot holes, character development issues, and problems with our plans for depicting marginalized characters—and everyone will benefit from better stories. *smile*

Before you start to draft, how much do you think through potential high-level issues with your story’s premise? Have you discovered plot holes or character issues at this stage? Or were you able to fix major problems in your story before writing them out? Do you think a Premise Check that includes a consultation for potential problems with marginalized characters would be beneficial? Do you have any suggestions to improve this idea?

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Looking back over my work so far, I think the group I most frequently portray negatively are INTJs – because when I write an antagonist, I’m looking for someone efficient, strategic, effective… someone who makes for an intimidating adversary, in fact. (Though I’ve never had an INTJ beta reader complain about this!)

All joking aside, I can see the value of having sensible sounding boards at both ends of the process. At the beginning, to make sure you don’t choose something damn stupid (Nazi romance???) for your premise; and at the end, because unconscious biases don’t always come out of the woodwork at the rough outline stage.

On the other hand, if you’re the kind of person who thinks an unrepentant white supremacist would make a great romantic hero, maybe rewriting your book before publication isn’t your biggest challenge. It’s rewriting your heart. (Because if you don’t, you’re either going to be widely reviled, or pretending to be someone you’re not for the sake of your career.) Change your heart – don’t just change your book to disguise it.

Of course, most problems, I think, are caused not by lack of heart but by lack of knowledge, and we all know what the solution to that problem is!

Reading the section on biases, a question came to mind. What if your story has to do with a situation that does have a bias in it [in the real world] that does play a part in the story but is not part of the plot? I would think the writer has to address the bias as it is in real life to make the story authentic. What is your opinion on this?

That’s a good question! As you said, if we’re trying to make our story at least somewhat realistic, we don’t want to pretend there’s no bias in a situation when there is.

I ran into that with my novel Pure Sacrifice. Part of the theme was how both the hero and heroine didn’t feel accepted anywhere. One minor factor in that on her end was the racial makeup of her neighborhood–and how it changed from one side of a cross street to another (which was true to life and probably due to historical redlining). So I tried not to make a big deal of racial makeup (and mentioned the race of white characters too), but it was something that needed to be stated once as it was based in fact.

One reviewer remarked negatively on that stated fact and one remarked positively, but I think that’s reviews in general. LOL! We’re never going to make everyone happy. 😉

I remember that in Pure Sacrifice. Also, the cover of that book shows the hero as being black. Real life is full of cultural and political lines set still in stone. I think we, as writers need to show this in our work, yet don’t make it bigger than what it truly is.

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11 months ago

Clare O'Beara

Good points to get issues resolved early. You can still change at edit time but then you have to catch every instance. Suppose you decide that early baldness was a good tweak for your hero and he would feel unhappy and insecure, you would then need to check for any point where his hair was described, or he looked in a mirror. By the end with luck you could pretty much ignore the emotional issue as he realises there are more important things to worry him.

As for negatively stereotyping a person of diverse type or group, every time I have a character of some diverse type do something bad or be suspected of it because of their type, I will balance that by an example of a character of that type who is a benefit to society. You can leave a gap between them but not too big; and try to balance the actions or negativity well or demonstrate that stereotyping is not ideal for your characters to do.

Hi Morgan, That’s a good question! As this post mentions, we could get a premise-level check even before writing our rough draft. However, as a pantser, I know that’s not always possible for our process. We might not know all the aspects of our premise until we discover it in our draft. 😉 So let’s assume we already have a rough draft either because we’re a pantser or because we’re following up on this consultation idea after the fact. One risk with just doing the chapter-by-chapter synopsis is that we don’t know what all we don’t know. So our story might include issues that we would never think about–and therefore not mention it in a synopsis. That said, a synopsis is certainly better than nothing. So if our consultant is only able to review a synopsis due to time constraints or interest, or if they simply prefer synopses, we can work with that. Another option is to include both the full draft and the highlights. Then we can offer instructions for them to dig in as they feel comfortable. For example, when I’ve gotten sensitivity reads on my rough drafts, I include a breakdown of all relevant chapters/pages (that I’ve identified–which might not be complete) as well as the full rough draft. That breakdown includes a summary of the situation, background, conflicts, and complications, as well as my intentions and goals for the scene (to see if any problems are an “idea” issue or a “wording” issue). With the specific… — Read More »

About writing diverse characters, I thought of a potential issue. What if you are a part of this minority group, but you do not mention it in your author bio? (For whatever reason.). Some readers might say they are not comfortable with someone outside of the community writing this diverse character— which would be sad, because the author is in fact a part of that community; they just did not reveal their identity in their author bio. For safety reasons, I would not mention in my bio that I’m on the autism spectrum. But what if I write about a character who is explicitly identified as autistic, inspired by my personal experiences as an autistic, and someone believes that I am portraying them incorrectly? (Sometimes, a person in a community can have stereotypes and preconceived notions about how people in this group must be like too. For instance, the trans folks who invalidate the trans people who don’t want to do medical transitioning, sigh.) I also don’t mention in my bio that I am on the aromantic and asexual spectra, because I think that is too personal. Again, yikes if any readers believe that I’m portraying any aces or aros inaccurately, when I’m actually just writing according to my own experiences as an aro ace… There are also tons of preconceptions about asexuals and aromantics that are not true for everyone in the community. I can imagine criticism against an aromantic character who later marries someone. Not all aromantics are… — Read More »

As you said, sometimes authors have to choose between a sense of privacy and an “own voices” label. And it’s true that some readers might judge an author who’s own-voices on the down low because the character’s portrayal doesn’t meet their expectations.

I’m hopeful that as we get more stories to cover more situations and types of characters, we’ll be better able to accept variations in characters and how they react. We need to see that there’s not “one right way” to be an X kind of person. 🙂 Thanks for chiming in with that insight!

I thought of a related problem. What if you want to keep a certain stigmatized identity a secret, yet your readers think you write a character from that social group with such insight, that they speculate that you must be in this social group? (I’m thinking specifically of some stigmatized mental illnesses here.).

For instance, I have a friend who wrote a story where the protagonist iniitally had severe depression and suicidal ideations. Some of the folks who read this story, were worried about my friend. My friend indeed had depression and suicidal ideations in the past, but wasn’t comfortable letting readers guess that. As a result, my friend edited their story to make the depression seem milder, without any reference to suicidal thoughts and desires at all.